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Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, Volume 146, 2012 57

ANTARCTIC VIGNETTES VI: LESLIE RUSSELL BLAKE – MAWSON’S FORGOTTEN GEOLOGIST

by Herbert J.G. Dartnall

with four plates

Dartnall, H.J.G. 2012(14:xii): Antarctic vignettes VI: Leslie Russell Blake — Mawson’s forgotten geologist. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania 146: 57–62. ISSN 0080-4703. Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia. Email: [email protected]

Leslie Russell Blake was a young Australian surveyor and geologist of great talent who made an outstanding contribution to our knowledge of Macquarie Island whilst a member of Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) during 1911–1914. He was a member of the five-man team that spent nearly two years on Macquarie Island establishing their base at the northern end of the island. Blake spent much of his time away from the base surveying and making geological observations. His topographical map of the island was the standard until modern techniques such as aerial photography, satellite imagery, airborne synthetic aperture radar and GPS technology enabled the island to be mapped in detail. During the First World War Blake served with the Australian Imperial Forces and was awarded a Military Cross for a survey of the front line before the attack at Pozières. His death just days before the end of the First World War meant that he never finished writing up his scientific notes. It says much for the quality of his field reports that Douglas Mawson was eventually able to publish the work. Sadly, the fact that it was not published until 1943, and then only under Mawson’s name, meant that Leslie Russell Blake has been largely forgotten. Key Words: Leslie Russell Blake, geologist, Macquarie Island, Mawson, surveying, Australasian Antarctic Expedition.

INTRODUCTION Thereafter he was appointed a Geological Surveyor with the Queensland Department of Mines and spent much of This paper, the sixth in the Antarctic Vignette series (Dartnall, the next three years exploring the Gympie Goldfields and 2008a, b, 2009a, b, 2011), arises from a presentation at a other remote areas of Queensland. symposium celebrating the centenary of the departure of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) in 1911. Douglas Mawson recruited four geologists for the AAE — THE AUSTRALASIAN ANTARCTIC one for each of the bases he hoped to establish. In the event EXPEDITION — THE FIRST YEAR only two of the three Continental bases were established: Charles Archibald Hoadley and Andrew Dougal Watson In 1911 Leslie Russell Blake was appointed geologist and doubled up at the Western Base, while Francis Leslie Stillwell surveyor for the Macquarie Island part of the AAE. There was stationed at the Main Base at Cape Denison. While he was joined by four other expeditioners — Charles Alfred these three men are comparatively well known, and all have Sandell, radio mechanic and operator; George Frederick entries in the Australian Dictionary of Biography (Lack 1983, Ainsworth, meteorologist and station leader; Arthur John Wilcock 1990, Price 2005), Leslie Russell Blake, the man Sawyer, radio operator; and Harold Hamilton, biologist destined for Macquarie Island, has no such entry and is (pl. 1). They were all young: Ainsworth was the oldest at one of the forgotten men of the expedition. 33, Hamilton and Sawyer were both 26, Sandell was 25 and Blake just 21. The Macquarie Island Base was established to relay wireless EARLY LIFE messages between the Main Base at Cape Denison and mainland Australia. It is worth remembering in light of the Leslie Russell Blake was born on 28 October 1890 in subsequent history of the expedition that only these two Hawthorn, Victoria, the sixth and youngest child of Thomas bases were equipped with both transmitting and receiving Henry Blake and Maria Louisa Blake née Purdey. Leslie’s sets. The Western Party was supplied with a receiver but it father, who was born at Stowmarket in Suffolk, England, in was unserviceable due to missing components, and the S.Y. 1851, emigrated to Australia in early 1873. A photographer, Aurora only had a receiver fitted for her second Antarctic he married Leslie’s mother at South Yarra in 1878. She was cruise. born in1857 at Kandy, Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, but died in With a complement of five the Macquarie Island party was Australia of a carcinoma in1892, aged 35 when Leslie was the smallest scientific party then established in the Antarctic just 20 months old. Leslie’s father remarried the following region. While they were not the most harmonious group year and died of pulmonary tuberculosis in 1897, aged 45. that ever wintered together this can in part be attributed to Following the premature death of both his parents, Leslie the smallness of their party and the nature of their duties and his two younger half sisters were brought up by their which limited their opportunities to bond (Dartnall in aunt Mrs J. Deazeley in Queensland. Leslie was educated press). Sawyer and Sandell, the radio operator and mechanic, locally and at the Brisbane Technical College. He passed operated at night when radio reception was best. Indeed, on the University of Sydney Junior Public Examination, and in the foulest nights after they had completed their schedule 1907 passed the Queensland Public Service Examination. they would bed down in the radio hut and engine house 58 H. J. G. Dartnall

PLATE 1 The Macquarie Island Party: (left to right) Charles Alfred Sandell, George Frederick Ainsworth, Arthur John Sawyer, Harold Hamilton and Leslie Russell Blake. Photograph courtesy of the State Library of New South Wales – Home and Away 36150. on Wireless Hill rather than risk the dark descent to the BLAKE’S SURVEYING AND GEOLOGICAL expedition’s hut colloquially known as “the shack”. Blake COLLECTION and Hamilton, spent much of their time down the island on field trips away from “the shack”, which was the preserve During his almost two years on Macquarie Island Blake spent of Ainsworth whose meteorological duties restricted him to much of his time mapping. On the shore of Garden Cove he the north end of the island. established a benchmark, which has since disappeared, and Personal antipathy apart, the achievements of the with Harold Hamilton’s help a measured base line 2830.5 feet Macquarie Island Party were outstanding. Ainsworth (862.7 m) long running NNW across the plateau from a rise established a meteorological station on the isthmus and at on the north side of the top of Gadget Gully. According to 0900 hours on 1 January 1912 commenced taking readings Mawson, the survey “was executed as a theodolite triangulation that he continued unabated for the best part of two years. from a measured base line. Sighting poles were erected on all Ainsworth’s work was considered important enough for the main features of the land, and these were then plotted the Bureau of Meteorology to send three men down on systematically. From these established stations the minor the S.Y. Aurora to continue it when the AAE men came details and contours were plotted” (Mawson 1943, p. 16). home. Harold Hamilton made large collections of the Given the size of the island, 34 km long and up to 5 km flora and fauna that led to a greater understanding of the wide, this was a gargantuan achievement especially when the island’s biota. Sawyer and Sandell soon had the wireless weather is taken into consideration. The hardest part was equipment installed and quickly established contact with waiting for periods of good clear weather to do the sightings the outside world. Messages for the Meteorological Bureau (pl. 2). Blake’s diary entry for 31 October 1912 reads: in Melbourne were transmitted direct or via Hobart, Sydney climbed Mt. Mawson [now Mt. Hamilton] and or Wellington when reception was poor. Contact was made when I had done so another low cloud descended; so and messages regularly exchanged with Perth (3716 km I returned to the hut. About noon the cloud lifted so distant), Port Moresby (some 5118 km distant) and Suva I climbed the mountain “again” and struck a fog this Station, Fiji (4384 km away). They also communicated with time: (this is the seventh time I climbed this mountain H.M.A.S. Encounter at a distance of 3500 km, and with and had no luck). I waited on the top this time for 2 various merchant vessels including the German steamer hours and then the fog cleared, so I was able to observe Adelaide when it was 1750 km northwest of Perth and angles from this station (Blake 1911–1914). with the S.S. Mataram when that ship was north of Port The weather at Macquarie Island can be very variable Darwin. On 16 April 1912 Sawyer logged the loss of the — changing from calm conditions in bright sunshine to Titanic just hours after it happened (Sawyer 1911–1913). blowing a gale, with driving snow and back to sunshine all Two-way communication with the Main Base was not within the hour. On other occasions foggy conditions may established during the first winter as the aerials at Cape hang around for days, and gales and storms can last for Denison were blown down and could not be re-erected. weeks. All the while Blake collected rocks for his geological When the S.Y. Aurora next visited – 13 January to 8 February collection. Unfortunately, the location of many of his rock 1913 (second Antarctic voyage) – the seamen on board, with specimens are tied to the sighting stations he established their greater rigging skills, got the aerials up, and successful that cannot now be identified as his field notebooks are communication with Macquarie Island was established. missing (Mawson 1943). Antarctic vignettes VI: Leslie Russell Blake — Mawson’s forgotten geologist 59

PLATE 2 Blake taking an observation of the sun near the AAE hut on the isthmus. Photograph courtesy of the State Library of New South Wales –Home and Away 36145.

THE SECOND YEAR The S.Y. Aurora left Hobart on 19 November 1913 and arrived at Macquarie Island nine days later when the The Macquarie Island party had only expected to be away station was handed over to the three men who had come for one year and anticipated going home around April to continue the meteorological observations. Ainsworth, 1913 but tragedy changed that. When Douglas Mawson, Blake, Hamilton and Sandell were soon packed and ready Belgrave Ninnis and Xavier Mertz failed to return from their to leave and within a week they were on their way to pick sledging trip, Captain John King Davis, Captain of the S.Y. up Mawson and the overwintering party at Cape Denison. Aurora and second in command of the expedition, made the This was duly accomplished, all the while taking soundings courageous decision to leave Commonwealth Bay and pick and dredging. The Aurora then tracked its way westward up Wild and the Western party. Captain Davis left six men to the Davis Sea and the Shackleton Ice Shelf, where the behind to look for the missing sledgers and thus committed Western party had been based, before heading north and the Macquarie Islanders to a second winter. While it is true home, early in February 1914. that they all volunteered to stay on they really did not have an option (Dartnall in press). Regular two-way communication between Macquarie HOME Island and the Main Base at Cape Denison was established in February 1913. At first communications were somewhat TheAurora docked at Port Adelaide on the afternoon of 26 fragmentary but dramatically improved as the months February 1914. Three days later, on 1 March, there was an progressed. Early on Sawyer relayed the story of Mawson’s official reception in the University of Adelaide Hall, attended epic survival following the loss of his two companions to by families and friends, and local dignitaries. The Governor- an astounded world. Mawson’s fantastic struggle against all General, Lord Denman, came from Melbourne to convey a the odds was, however, completely eclipsed and wiped off message of congratulations from King George V (Mawson the newspapers’ headlines a couple of days later by news 1915). The expedition then dispersed. Less than a month from New Zealand of the death of Captain Robert Falcon later, Blake was back in his old job as a field assistant with Scott and his four companions on their way back from the Queensland Geological Survey. Since there were no the South Pole. expedition funds for further study, his writing up had to The Macquarie Island Party’s second year was not take second place to earning a living. without its problems. Equipped and provisioned for a one-year stay their clothing had to be continually patched and repaired, their equipment had to be modified and THE GREAT WAR improvised but most seriously, they ran out of food. They bartered some food stuffs with the sealers who were on World events soon overtook the expeditioners. Archduke the island, but the sealers were in a worse position than Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was the AAE men. Sawyer became sick and disillusioned and assassinated on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo, and five weeks later, when the S.S. Tutanekai visited in August 1913 Sawyer on 4 August, Great Britain declared war on Germany. When went with them leaving Sandell to additionally take on Blake heard the news he was inland from Bowen, Queensland the wireless operator’s role. engaged in geological work. He immediately set out to enlist 60 H. J. G. Dartnall and walked 20 miles (32 km) to catch the coach at Bowen only to miss it and then had to trudge the 20 miles back to his camp where he mentally struggled with his duty to the expedition versus his patriotic fervour. Of the Macquarie Island men only Sandell did not enlist. He was employed doing important work building a new installation in Esperance for Amalgamated Wireless and stayed on afterwards as an operator. Ainsworth became an Intelligence Officer with the Counter Espionage Bureau investigating anti-war groups in Australia. He was promoted to Captain and became Head of the Queensland Branch of the Special Intelligence Bureau, the Australian branch of MI5. Hamilton joined the Royal Navy and became an instructor in the UK. Sawyer joined the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force and served at Rabaul, before enlisting in the Australian Imperial Forces and going on to receive a commission in the Indian Army. Over the next few months Blake continued to battle with his conscience — weighing his scientific responsibilities versus his patriotism. He contemplated joining Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition, though it is not clear if he turned down an invitation from Sir Ernest or just considered applying. In February 1915 he applied for a commission with the Australian Army in the Engineers but heard nothing. Frustrated he tried to enlist in the Artillery some months later. Everything was arranged and he had been recommended for a commission but was surprised and bitterly disappointed to fail the medical. News of the deaths in action at Gallipoli of Bob Bage, who had been the AAE’s Astronomer and Assistant Magnetician, and John Firman Deazeley (Blake’s cousin) some weeks later, only strengthened his resolve to enlist. He ascertained that he would be accepted by the Army if he underwent a PLATE 3 simple operation and there were no complications. This he Studio portrait of 7306 Gunner Leslie Russell Blake, 5th Field duly did and on 4 August 1915 became No. 7306 Gunner Artillery Brigade. Photograph courtesy of the Australian War Leslie Russell Blake (pl. 3). He underwent basic training Memorial, photo P07842.001. at the Enoggera Camp in Brisbane, conveniently close to family and his fiancée. His abilities were quickly recognised and he was soon a junior NCO (non-commissioned officer) the number of casualties (London Gazette 25 November and drill instructor. He turned down a commission that 1916). The citation reads: “For conspicuous gallantry in would have delayed his departure to the front by at least action. He carried out reconnaissances under very heavy four or five months and left for the Middle East with his fire with great courage and determination, obtaining most fellow recruits. They arrived at Suez just before Christmas valuable information”. Later that year Blake carried out a by which time the Allies had withdrawn from Gallipoli. similar survey for which he was Mentioned in Sir Douglas Sgt Blake received a field commission on 12 March 1916 Haig’s Despatch of 13 November 1916 “for distinguished just 10 days before his unit left for France. and gallant services and devotion to duty in the field” (LG Like many of the AAE men, Blake took to soldiering, 29 December 1916). his time south seeming to have been good training for life In August 1917 he met Frank Hurley, recently back from in the trenches. On 21 July 1916 three divisions of the 1st Shackleton’s ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition Anzac Corps moved into the front lines opposite the village and now serving on the Western Front as an Official of Pozières. Blake went with them volunteering to make a photographer with the Australian Imperial Forces. Hurley detailed survey of the allied lines from Pozières to Mouquet and other war correspondents spent a couple of days in the Farm – an essential prerequisite for an accurate artillery vicinity. Blake accompanied Frank Hurley and appears in barrage. His brief, to survey the actual lines held by allied a number of official photographs (pl. 4). troops, sounds innocuous enough but involved venturing Blake was wounded for a second time less than a month into no man’s land where he came under enemy fire and later on 25 September 1917 when a shell fragment some indeed he was slightly wounded by a sniper. four centimetres long passed clean through his right forearm Interestingly Blake’s military record fails to record his miraculously passing between the radius and ulna without wounding but it is noted in the unit diary and of course damaging either bone. He was lucky. Had the piece of in his letters home (Blake 1915–1918). The infantry attack shrapnel had a slightly different trajectory or been spinning took place at 0030 hours on the morning of 23 July, in a different plane it would have taken his arm off. Blake preceded by a massive bombardment. As a result of his was sanguine about such matters; he applied a field dressing exploits Blake was in due course awarded a Military Cross to his arm and returned to duty. But the wound was serious for his survey which enabled the Australian forces to advance and the following day he was on his way to “Blighty” and behind a creeping barrage, thereby dramatically reducing the 3rd London General Hospital at Wandsworth. Antarctic vignettes VI: Leslie Russell Blake — Mawson’s forgotten geologist 61

PLATE 4 Near Hill 60. Lieutenant L.R. Blake MC standing on the remains of a German reinforced concrete dugout after it had been hit by a 9.2-inch British shell. Photograph courtesy of the Australian War Memorial, photo E00665.

Blake rejoined his unit at the beginning of 1918 when the The map that Blake produced of Macquarie Island, and war was becoming more mobile. His abilities were further reproduced as a folding map in the back of Macquarie recognised when he was posted to Headquarters as a Staff Island its Geography and Geology (Mawson 1943), remains Officer but this did not suit him, he missed the camaraderie his crowning achievement. While he never linked the of his battery and after a while he requested a transfer back northern third of the island, north of Sandy Bay, to that to the 105 Howitzer Battery. His luck finally ran out on of the southern portion to his own satisfaction, his map 2 October 1918. He was supervising the unloading of an remained the standard until very recently when satellite ammunition train behind the lines when a stray artillery shell imagery, Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) exploded under his horse. The horse was killed and he was and the global positioning system revolutionised the grievously wounded – shrapnel wounds to the left leg and cartographer’s task. Indeed, Blake achieved unbelievably thigh, face and skull. He was conveyed to a nearby Casualty accurate results without these modern aids (Dartnall et al. Clearing Station where he died the following morning. 2001, H. Brolsma pers. comm. 2011). Blake also collected a large number of geological specimens all of which were correctly identified. However, Blake and CONCLUSION Mawson’s interpretation of the island’s geological history no longer holds sway. They were looking for, and believed Captain Leslie Russell Blake’s death just 39 days before peace that they had found, evidence of glaciation, whereas we was declared was a tragedy especially as it appears to have now know that Macquarie Island is a block of ocean floor been due to what nowadays we call a “friendly-fire incident” material raised from mid-ocean as a result of severe fault (Dartnall in press). Blake was well aware that he might movements and earthquakes that has been subsequently not survive the war and prior to enlisting had ensured his shaped by further faulting, sea-level changes, erosion and scientific notes were in safe hands. The Home of the Blizzard periglacial events (Varne et al. 2000). Continental drift and (Mawson 1915) carried a small version of Blake’s map and the resulting science of plate tectonics that we now use to the Admiralty published a chart of the island in 1917 (chart describe Macquarie Island’s formation was first published no. 1022) based on Blake’s observations but it was many years by Alfred Lothar Wegener in 1915 so that it is highly before the AAE report appeared. The scientific results of the unlikely that Blake had ever heard of it. For many years AAE were published gradually over the following decades it was a contentious theory and only since the 1960s has and each new report carried an advertisement for Blake and it been accepted. Mawson’s Geology of Macquarie Island. In the event, the work The young men who were part of the AAE were an was not published until 1943, 25 years after Blake’s death. exceptional group and many went on to achieve great things. It says a lot for both men – the quality of Blake’s notes and Tragically for Leslie Blake, Bob Bage, Archibald McLean and Mawson’s ability to interpret them – that the report was at least five of the Aurora’s crew, the First World War put an finally published though it is hard to understand why Mawson end to promising careers ( Lucas 2012, Dartnall in press). dropped Blake’s name from the authorship (Mawson 1943). 62 H. J. G. Dartnall

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Dartnall, H.J.G. in press: Lost in the Mists: Leslie Russell Blake – Mawson’s Cartographer, Hero of Pozières. Australian This paper was presented in November 2011 at a symposium Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne. organised by The Royal Society of Tasmania and held at the Dartnall, H.J.G., Ward, N., Selkirk, P.M., Adamson, D.A. & Pharaoh, M. 2001: The influence of L.R. Blake, University of Tasmania entitled “Mawson 100 years on: how pioneering sub-Antarctic geographer and geologist, on the things have changed” as part of the Antarctic Centennial topographic mapping of Macquarie Island. Polar Record Year 2011–2012 celebrations (Antarctic Centennial Year 37(201): 143–150. 2011). My thanks to Beryl Hazlett, Louis Cook, Diane Lack, J. 1983: Hoadley, Charles Archibald Brookes. In: Australian Williams and other members of the Blake family for their Dictionary of Biography 1891-1939. Melbourne University encouragement and help with my researches on LRB’s Press, Melbourne 9: 313–314. early life. The photographs reproduced herein are by kind Lucas, A. 2012: Mertz in Hobart: impressions of one of Mawson’s permission of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New men while preparing for Antarctic adventure. Papers and South Wales, and the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania 146: 37–44. Mawson, D. 1915: The Home of the Blizzard. 2 Volumes. William Heinemann, London: Vol. 1: 349 pp. and Vol. 2: 338 pp. Mawson, D. 1943: Macquarie Island its Geography and Geology. REFERENCES Australasian Antarctic Expedition 1911-14 Scientific Reports, Series A Volume V: 194 pp. Blake, L.R. 1911–14: Diary. Unpublished manuscript, MS 9551. Price, B. 2005: Watson, Andrew Dougald. In: Australian Dictionary Melbourne: State Library of Victoria, La Trobe library; of Biography 1580–1980. Melbourne University Press, Adelaide: Mawson Antarctic Collection, Coach House, Melbourne Supplement: 398. Waite Institute, University of Adelaide. Sawyer, A.J. 1911–13: Diary. Unpublished manuscript, MSS. Blake, L.R. 1915–18: Letters and Postcards home. Unpublished, 383. Sydney: State Library of New South Wales, Mitchell 1DRL/0128. Australian War Memorial. Library. Dartnall, H.J.G. 2008a: Antarctic Vignettes 1: Mawson’s Sailmaker Varne, R., Brown, A.V. & Fallon, T. 2000: Macquarie Island: – James Forbes. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society its geology, structural history and the timing and tectonic of Tasmania. 142(2): 45–46. setting of its N-MORB to E-MORB magmatism. In Dilek, Dartnall, H.J.G. 2008b: Antarctic Vignettes II: The search for Y., Moores, E., Elthon, D. & Nicolas, A. (eds): Ophiolites S. Tasman, AB on the Terra Nova, 1903–04. Papers and and oceanic crust: new insights from field studies and the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania. 142(2): 47–48. Ocean Drilling Programs. Geological Society of America. Dartnall, H.J.G. 2009a: Antarctic Vignettes III: Shackleton’s AB Special Paper 349: 301–320. – William Frederick Williams. Papers and Proceedings of Wegener, A.L. 1915: Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane. the Royal Society of Tasmania. 143(2): 83–86. [The Origin of Continents and Oceans]. Friedrich Vieweg Dartnall, H.J.G. 2009b: Antarctic Gold: Chief Petty Officer & Sohn Akt. Ges, Braunschweig: 367 pp. Albert Balson BEM*, DSM, RN. The Review, Quarterly Wilcock, A.A. 1990: Stillwell, Francis Leslie. In: Australian Journal of the Naval Historical Collectors and Research Dictionary of Biography 1891-1939. Melbourne University Association. 22(1): 4–10. Press, Melbourne. 12: 94–95. Dartnall, H.J.G. 2011: Antarctic Vignettes: Dr. Wilson’s Assistant – Horace Edgar Buckridge. Journal of the Orders and Medals (accepted 6 November 2012) Research Society. 50(1): 42–45.